Terry Nicholson hasn’t been hired for a fixed term as interim chief of MOCA.CHRISTINE MELENHORST
Less than two weeks after it was announced that Chantal Pontbriand would be leaving as chief executive officer of the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Toronto-based museum has appointed a veteran city bureaucrat as interim CEO.
He's Terry Nicholson, 65, who, until his retirement late last month, had been director of arts and culture for the City of Toronto since 2012. He joined Metro Toronto Cultural Affairs Division in 1990, becoming manager, cultural affairs, City of Toronto Culture in 2000.
Nicholson's first day on the job was Wednesday, having been approached by the museum's board last week to assume the interim directorship.
Nicholson, who has an MBA in arts administration from York University, has a long familiarity with and connection to the museum, going back to its original incarnation, in 1999, as the Art Gallery of North York, then its move to its popular Queen Street West location in 2005 when it was renamed the Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art. Indeed, MoCCA was a not-for-profit, arms-length agency of the city until August, 2012, when it recast itself as MoCCA Corp., an independent charity with its own board.
Last fall, MoCCA announced it had hired Pontbriand, a Quebec-born internationally known arts powerhouse, as its first-ever CEO. She was tasked with relocating the museum from its Queen Street quarters to a 10-storey, century-old former factory, known as the Tower Automotive Building, in Toronto's west end. In late March, Pontbriand presented an ambitious plan, at once expansive and detailed, for the relocated museum, which would be housed on the first five floors of the renovated tower. Construction was pegged for a May, 2017, completion, with the museum renamed the Museum of Contemporary Art_Toronto_Canada.
However, reported friction between Pontbriand and the board led to a parting of the ways, formally announced June 24, with Pontbriand's last official work day being June 30.
Announcing his retirement from the city in April this year, Nicholson said he thought he'd probably do some consulting and keep his hand in what he called "his passion projects," the Museum of Contemporary Art being one of them. "But [the vision] was nothing as extensive as this," he said with a laugh during an interview Wednesday.
Nicholson's task for the next couple of months or so is "to kind of go through the documents, digest them slowly, work with the board and staff to clarify the mission … make sure everyone's on board and then [figure out] how do all the things we're doing fit within that mission."
Asked if he would be implementing as fully as possible the Pontbriand vision, Nicholson noted that "even if Chantal were still here, the whole thing is a work in progress in terms of how much money you can raise, how much you can afford. These projects are never exactly as you pitch them on Day One." Still, he said, "the overall vision of taking MoCA to the next level in this iconic building," starting sometime in 2017, "that's still the plan."
Nicholson hasn't been hired for a fixed term as interim chief. "I'm available as long as they need me. When the time is right [to part], we'll both know it." As someone who was involved in the lauded adaptive re-uses of the Evergreen Brick Works and Wychwood Barns, he said, "I've got a lot of experience getting building projects done, and if that's what they need me to do, I'm available. If they want to bring in somebody else before that point, that's okay, too."
Would he like to become the museum's full-time CEO?
"I'll never say never. But," he laughed, "I am retired and I've only had two days of retirement so far and this is my first day here … Let's wait and see."